Thursday, March 31, 2011

2 comments:

Certainly a rise in occult practices, would result in a higher request for exorcism. Simultaneously there will be a large increase in false alarms too :P Such as panicked parents of satan worshiping offspring. I wonder how many requests are legitimate and if the number of legitimate requests have increased proportionately. I must admit I find the idea of ridiculously panicked parents somewhat amusing :P

Good questions and points of discussion there AW. There are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, usually if there are parents who are panicked, their first response is not to send their child to a priest. In fact, they will normally first go to a psychologist or psychiatrist, followed by some sort of person involved with the occult, perhaps a psychic, or someone else of that sort. The last place they will normally go is a priest. Often though, visiting a psychic or occult person will actually exacerbate the situation.

If someone is referred to an exorcist, the priest will first have to determine the possibility that the person is in fact possessed. Someone taking an interest in the occult or satanism is not automatically possessed. A possession will entail a demon taking some control over a person.

Most of the time, the person being exorcized will willingly participate in the procedure, rather than being forced to do so.

The first thing a priest does is attempts to rule out any psychological explanation for a person's particular behaviors. If no medical professional can explain the situation, the priest can then start the exorcism process.

There are ways to tell if someone is possessed rather than simply having mental issues. For one, the person may know things which are not possible for him or her to know. Or they may speak a language fluently which they had no previous knowledge of, or they may acquire super-human strength. These could be signs of possession.